Blog the Seventeenth

Hello Motherless Daughters! And Happy Flippin' Holidays!

I wanted to start this post yesterday, for the official start of the 12 Days of Christmas, but I got busy and forgot. So here it is - a day late but just as good promise.

I could post to you guys about how difficult it could be around the holidays for us motherless ones. But all of you are already hip to that shit. All of the Motherless Daughters, in all of the world, already know this time of year sucks.

So for the 12 Days of Christmas this year, I've decided to do something a little different. Instead of expounding on the knowledge ya'll already know about Motherless Daughters and how well they do on Holidays, I'm gonna learn ya something maybe you don't know but really, really should. For those of us Motherless Daughters who also have the distinction of being fabulously solo, I think a lot of this info is mightily important.

We're gonna do two sections this time around since I missed one yesterday. Ready, set, read!

The 12 Days of Christmas - You Could do This But do This Instead Version (sung in the verse of absolutely no figgin' holiday song in existence, 'cause I can't sing and this doesn't rhyme anyway.)

On the
1st Day of Christmas
You could do this: Sulk

But do this instead: Take a few hours to do a Year End Portfolio Checkup

1. Check on your 401k - review retirement plan contributions
2. Check on your IRA accounts
3. Review your entire portfolio to see if it still meets your goals
4. Rebalance if necessary
5. Track your gains and losses since purchase date
6. Find ways to cut expenses
7. Make additional contributions
8. Review your company's benefit plans


On the
2nd Day of Christmas
You could do this: Cry your eyes out till you're sucking up your own snot

But do this instead: If you don't have a portfolio to checkup on - build one!

Retail discount invest brokers like Sharebuilder (love them!) allow you to buy individual stocks, exchange traded funds and index funds, for a very low commission (4 bucks a pop) and no minimums. If you're not stock market savvy, start with investing $10 a week (heck a month even, just start with something!) in an index fund that matches what benchmarks, like the S&P, are returning. That way you'll at least be making some money back on your hard earned dough.

Index Fund Super Crash Course from Wikipedia - Click and Learn Baby!

Check back in tomorrow...ish, for the next verse of this new holiday song!

-TL